with the easily satisfied mind of the self-uninterested Banquo:

and then Macbeth's earnest reply,

Act iii. sc. 1. Compare Macbeth's mode of working on the murderers in this place with Schiller's mistaken scene between Butler, Devereux, and Macdonald in Wallenstein. (Part II. act iv. sc. 2.) The comic was wholly out of season. Shakspeare never introduces it, but when it may react on the tragedy by harmonious contrast.

Ib. sc. 3. This low soliloquy of the Porter and his few speeches afterwards, I believe to have been written for the mob by some other hand, perhaps with Shakspeare's consent; and that finding it take, he with the remaining ink of a pen otherwise employed, just interpolated the words

Ib. sc. 5. Macbeth is described by Lady Macbeth so as at the same time to reveal her own character. Could he have every thing he wanted, he would rather have it mnocently;ignorant, as alas! how many of us are, that he who wishes a temporal end for itself, does in truth will the means; and hence the danger of indulging fancies, Lady Macbeth, like all in Shakspeare, is a class individualized:of high rank, left much alone, and feeding herself with day-dreams of ambition, she mistakes the courage of fantasy for the power of bearing the consequences of the realities of guilt. Hers is the mock fortitude of a mind deluded by ambition; she shames her husband with a superhuman audacity of fancy which she cannot support, but sinks in the season of remorse, and dies in suicidal agony. Her speech:

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Ib. How admirably Macduff's grief is in harmony with the whole play! It rends, not dissolves, the heart. 'The tune of it goes manly.' Thus is Shakspeare always master of himself and of his subject,a genuine Proteus:we see all things in him, as images in a calm lake, most distinct, most accurate,only more splendid, more glorified. This is correctness in the only philosophical sense. But he requires your sympathy and your submission; you must have that recipiency of moral impression without which the purposes and ends of the drama would be frustrated, and the absence of which demonstrates an utter want of all imagination, a deadness to that necessary pleasure of being innocentlyshall I say, deluded?or rather, drawn away from ourselves to the music of noblest thought in har-monious sounds. Happy he, who not only in the public theatre, but in the labours of a profession, and round the light of his own hearth, still carries a heart so pleasure-fraught!

Free Macbeth Essays and Papers - 123HelpMe

Some women in the Renaissance were able to acquire an ; many managed properties as widows, or when their husbands were away; and in the background there were the extraordinary examples of and --the one admired, the other feared by many.

Macbeth: Tragic Hero (An Essay). - FIELD OF THEMES

Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty. . . (1.5.40-43)

The Corrupting Power of Unchecked Ambition

Lost in the prospective of his guilt, he turns round alarmed lest others may suspect what is passing in his own mind, and instantly vents the lie of ambition:

SparkNotes: Macbeth: Character List

on the entrance of the deeper traitor for whom Cawdor had made way! And here in contrast with Duncan's 'plenteous joys,' Macbeth has nothing but the common-places of loyalty, in which he hides himself with 'our duties.' Note the exceeding effort of Macbeth's addresses to the king, his reasoning on his allegiance, and then especially when a new difficulty, the designation of a successor, suggests a new crime. This, however, seems the first distinct notion, as to the plan of realizing his wishes; and here, therefore, with great propriety, Macbeth's cowardice of his own conscience discloses itself. I always think there is something especially Shakspearian in Duncan's speeches throughout this scene, such pourings forth, such abandonments, compared with the language of vulgar dramatists, whose characters seem to have made their speeches as the actors learn them.

Understanding MacBeth - A Research Guide for Students

Then he relapses into himself again, and every word of his soliloquy shows the early birth-date of his guilt. He is all-powerful without strength; he wishes the end, but is irresolute as to the means; conscience distinctly warns him, and he lulls it imperfectly:

Then in the necessity of recollecting himself

Act ii. sc. i. Banquo's speech:

The deed is done; but Macbeth receives no comfort, no additional security. He has by guilt torn himself live-asunder from nature, and is, therefore, himself in a preter-natural state: no wonder, then, that he is inclined to superstition, and faith in the unknown of signs and tokens, and super-human agencies.

The acme of the avenging conscience.

Warburton's note, and substitution of 'feats' for 'fears.' Mercy on this most wilful ingenuity of blundering, which, nevertheless, was the very Warburton of Warburton his inmost being! 'Fears,' here, are present fear-striking objects, terrihilia. adstanfia.

Reviews

“ Lady Macbeth is a sinister figure: at the very outset she deliberately tries to suppress her feminine qualities in order to excercise . How might Shakespeare's audience respond to a woman seeking power? ”